


If You Must Mourn, My Love, Don't Do It Alone

by watchingthestars13



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky and Kate knows whats up, F/M, Getting Back Together, Kate and Bucky the matchmakers, Post-Break Up, i guess?, plentiful cursing, probably too much cursing tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 13:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5377496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watchingthestars13/pseuds/watchingthestars13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint and Natasha have been broken up for two and a half months, and it has been a new kind of personal hell for their closest friends. Kate and Bucky make a plan to get them back together again: Get Clint out of his nest, and Natasha out of Tony's liquor cabinet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Must Mourn, My Love, Don't Do It Alone

**Author's Note:**

> This is just because I have writers block on my other chaptered fic and I had the sudden urge to just generally harm Joss Whedon for taking the Clintasha out of AoU and I just-   
> Sigh.   
> Kudos and comments greatly appreciated!  
> Enjoy! <3

 

"You can't just go fucking other girls and pretending it's her, Clint. It's not her and you need to grow up and realize that no matter how many girls, no matter how much booze, and no matter how much you beat people up, the fact that she's gone isn't going to stop being a fact!" Kate yelled at him. 

She was right. Natasha was gone. Gone with the wind and avoiding him and he was trying to get over her, he really  _was_. Redheads, the girls he'd brought home in the beginning of this hell were redheads, all nice and loud in bed but not like Natasha. Natasha's body told a whole lot more than her noises did. Her breathy curses in Russian and groans of pleasure didn't say as much as her fingers interlocking with his, her head tipped back against his shoulder with her eyes closed and lips parted. Safe. Home. 

Not anymore though.

"Fuck off, I don't need a babysitter," Clint grumbled into his pillow, hoping that Kate would stop opening blinds in his room and making his already throbbing head much worse with all her yelling.

"I'm not gonna fucking babysit you," Kate snapped, and ripped the covers off his bed. "I'm taking Lucky to my place. You call me when you're ready to suck it up and  _talk_ like a responsible adult, and I'll bring him back and you can cuddle him and you can move the fuck on with your life. It's been two and a half months. You need to actually start dealing with this shit."

"I am dealing with it!"

"No you're not. Get the fuck out of bed!" Kate called and he heard Lucky's leash get picked off it's hanger that Natasha had forced him to put up so that he wouldn't lose it in the mess that was his apartment, and then the door slammed, loud enough for Clint to groan miserably. This day was going to fucking suck.

He managed to drag his hungover ass out of bed by twelve, and drank a pot of coffee since he didn't have any clean mugs, and decided that he wasn't in the mood for moving more today. Maybe later, when the hangover had calmed down, he could go to the shooting range at Shield. 

But no, wait. He couldn't go there. Natasha might be there.

His heart stung at the thought of her, and he scrubbed his hands over his tired face, catching on the four day stubble. Clint needed a shave and a shower. He listened to some stupid pop song as he did the sit-ups and push-ups and general health exercises he kept neglecting, and avoided his face in the bathroom mirror, the shards from it still scattered in the sink.  _I should probably fix that_ , he mused and hopped into the shower.

When he came back out, he grabbed a pair of sweats and collapsed on the couch, feeling shittier now that everything he'd been thinking about last night before he hit the bottle was coming back to him. 

Natasha's laugh and her hair and her dry humor and her quirked eyebrows and soft smiles and her wonderful ideas and the raw strength of her body and her mind. Her empowering walk and eyerolls and-

He cut himself off and groaned, running his hands through his hair. 

This day was going to _suck_.

\---

 

"Hand me the bottle, Natalia," Bucky said, his face stone. Natasha glared daggers, swords, guns, and poisoned needles at him, but his gaze was unrelenting. "Now."

"No," she replied, clinging to the vodka bottle like it held her heart at the bottom of it, which it did, in some ways. The light silver chain burned around her neck, and she shouldn't be wearing it, she should've thrown it in the garbage disposal and flipped the switch. But she hadn't. It hid in her drawers, moving places from time to time as she toyed with it, playing with the arrow with her fingertips.

" _Natalia_ ," Bucky nearly pleaded. "Please give it to me."

Stark had excellent taste in Russian vodka, she thought absentmindedly as her fingers trembled around the neck of the bottle, nearly breaking the glass. 

" **Hand it over, Natalia** ," Bucky said softly in Russian, and she spat some harsh insults in Russian back, which made Bucky roll his eyes. Since he wasn't getting anywhere, he simply grabbed it, wrenching it out of her hands with his superstrength and her lack of want to fight back. "You need to woman up and stop drowning yourself in this shit."

Outwardly, Natasha looked fine. It looked like she had taken the break up with Clint with ease and grace, but she hadn't. She really hadn't. Nobody knew. Well, Bucky knew because he knew her, he knew her defense mechanisms and he knew that she had given her heart to Clint Barton and that it had been broken beyond repair. She couldn't deal with someone else having her heart.

"It's not shit," she said, making grabby hands for the bottle but not getting up from her kitchen floor, leaning back against the cupboards. Natasha closed her eyes. 

"Why did you even fucking break up with him if being apart from him makes you feel like absolute shit?" A lump swelled in her throat, but she just laughed bitterly.

" **You're an asshole. Back the fuck off,** " she said, not very nicely, in Russian, and Bucky set the vodka bottle down on the counter.

"Lemme guess: You can't deal with loving him," he said, dropping down next to her, his real arm getting carelessly thrown over her shoulders.

"I can deal with it," she mumbled, burrowing into Bucky's shirt and enjoying the smell of it. "Can't deal with him proposing."

"He proposed?" Bucky asked, surprise coloring his tone. Despite how the two and a half months she'd spent numb all on her lonesome, she'd neglected to tell Bucky. Or, more likely, purposefully avoided it.

"He said he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me," she replied numbly, and he snorted.

"Barton's always been a sappy romantic on the inside, and you knew that when you hopped on his circus train."

"I didn't think he'd make it that serious that fast."

"You'd been going out for what, thirteen months when he said that?" Natasha nodded into his neck, enjoying his spicy cologne. "And you'd been partners for eleven years. I don't really see why he'd want to spend his life _without_ you." She hummed against his neck, and Bucky nudged her head off. "Stop that. Not gonna be your rebound fuck. Just get back together with him, tell him you're not gonna marry him yet. You fake feelings for a whole lot of people, and he's not one of them. You need to get into your thick skull that you've loved this sonovabitch for at least a decade, and drinking your tears in vodka ain't gonna help you feel better."

"It will," Natasha said weakly.

"Natalia." It was that exasperated tone that made Natasha hate him a little. "Go get your fucking man. I'm sick and tired of you moping around. You need him, he needs you, it's like that yin yang shit, and don't try to bullshit a bullshitter by saying you're fine. You're not fine, life fucking sucks, but it sucked a little less with Barton in it, and you look about as happy as a drowned kitten right about now. So put on a real pair of pants and go get your damn man."

"Why?" she asked softly. "He still wants to marry me."

"Is it even okay with Shield that you two marry?" he asked. Natasha smiled, a bitter smile.

"No, it's not. He doesn't care."

"Shit. He really loves you then." She nodded carefully, unsure of what Bucky was trying to do. So far he'd only offered his silent support and kept her off the harder stuff, and made sure she ate. She loved him for it, but why had his behavior suddenly changed? "Do you want to marry him?"

Natasha shot him a sharp look. Marriage wasn't something she thought about, concidering marriage was clumped in with living together and having kids and settling down and having a normal life. She wasn't in for any of those things. Natasha couldn't have children, didn't like sharing her space, and settling down and having a normal life wasn't even in a twenty year radius of her thoughts.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because marriage isn't what I want."

"Tell him that then. I bet he just wants to get into the hospital rooms when you guys are fucking shit up out of Shield hospital range and having to pay shared taxes. And boring stuff, like wedding bands and shit. And because he loves you a fucking lot. Like, a shit ton. I've seen different love in my years, but your's and Barton's is built on trust and solid ground and knowing each other through and through and weird jokes that no one but you two get and it's sickly cute at times, but I'd rather watch Clint give you a backrub than see you sitting here for the rest of your life."

Natasha was silent, soaking up the words.

"Put the coffee on," she mumbled, getting up on slightly wobbly feet.

"Attagirl," Bucky grunted.

\---

Clint had been so fucking stupid. So fucking stupid. He'd been stupid out of his mind proposing to Natasha, of course she wouldn't want a wreck like him, of course she couldn't deal with it. But he'd thought...

He shook his head and focused on not burning the eggs in the pan. He felt like shit, but he was clean, and he was kinda hungry, mixed with nausea, and according to anybody but Tony, coffee wasn't a substantial meal. He'd had coffee, booze, and toast for the past three days and Kate was sick of it, apparently. Seeing as his fridge was somewhat more stocked now that she'd been here, Clint decided that real food was a good way to get himself back on track. 

There was a knock on the door, but Clint wasn't feeling it at all, so he ignored it, until he heard a key being inserted in the lock. Was it Kate coming back to yell at him? No, she wouldn't have knocked. She also probably would've taken the window in instead of the door, like she was freakin' Spiderman or something.

"Clint?" a voice called out, a voice that made him freeze in his tracks and stare as the red tousle of hair came into view. His heart skipped a beat as she turned to him, and she froze too. 

Truth be told, Natasha looked like she'd been through hell and back. Her eyes were tired and she had neatly covered bags underneath her eyes, her posture rigid and tense and not unlike the way it'd been when he first brought her into Shield. She looked horrible, and he couldn't imagine he looked a lot better.

"Hi," he replied, his voice hoarse and his throat dry.

"Hi," Natasha said back, her tone quiet as she curled in on herself, her arms around her torso in a weird, kind of self hug. She was wearing yoga pants and a sweater that was his, he realized, and the arrow necklace hung proudly around her neck. It'd been a gift on their one year anniversary and she still wore it off missions.

"You still have it," he blurted out stupidly, giving it a look, and Natasha's hand curled protectively around the charm.

"I do," she said with a nod, her face that kind of blank that showed she was gearing up for something. The silence stretched for a minute, and Clint returned to the eggs, giving Natasha time to do whatever she was here for. Maybe she'd forgotten something? She hadn't come to pick up any of her stuff, some of her spare underwear and clothes hiding in a drawer in his room. He'd thrown all of her other stuff in the same drawer to stop himself from hurting. It hadn't worked. Her stuff was still hiding all over the place, and he couldn't seem to rinse it all out, even if he tried.

"Why are you here?" Clint asked, and it sounded more brisk than he wanted it too. Natasha tensed a little more where she stood stock still.

"We need to talk," she began, but Clint cut her off.

"If you're gonna do the whole 'we should still be friends' thing, then I'm gonna spare you your words and say that I'd take that, as long as we... I don't know, fix this."

"I don't want to still be friends." Clint felt like someone had ripped his intestines out of his body, and his heart hammered suddenly in his chest.

"Oh," he said, and didn't want to sound as gutted as he felt. He kept his gaze pointedly away from her as he fixed the scrambled eggs onto a plate.

"That didn't come out the way I wanted it too," Natasha added quickly. Neither of them had ever been good with words. Clint was bad, but Natasha was worse. She could tell him what he did that pissed her off and what calmed her, but talking about this bond between them, the one that was frighteningly strong, always had them both at a loss. "I don't like being without you."

Clint looked up, his blue eyes locking on her lips.

"Yeah, me neither," he admitted quietly.

"Bucky told me to woman up," she said with a slight smile.

"Well at least Bucky didn't steal your covers and your dog," Clint said back.

"That he didn't." They both smiled now, and Natasha felt safer here, she felt better and safer and she knew what Bucky had been talking about. Clint represtented everything good she'd ever had, he had been the light in the end of a dark tunnel before her Shield days, and her equal for years, and it hurt seeing him this wounded. She'd done that to him. Natasha forced herself to say what she wanted to say. "I've missed you."

Clint swallowed, and she watched his Adams apple bob.

"I've missed you too." The weight on Natasha's chest eased a little.

"I still don't want to get married, because with marriage comes living together and having kids and settling down, and those are things I don't think I can do." Clint stared at her for a full minute.

"I... I thought you just... Didn't want _me_ ," he said slowly, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. Natasha blanked.

" _What?_ "

"You said 'no, I can't do this, Clint, I just can't' and then you left," Clint said a little breathlessly, taking a step towards her.

"Clint-" Natasha began, but cut herself off, instead taking the remaining three steps towards him and grabbing his chin, pressing their lips together in a kiss.

Clint tasted like toothpaste and coffee and just distinctively  _Clint_ , and the smell of him was ten times better than Bucky's, and his strong arms wound around her waist, anchored her, making her feel like she was flying but at the same time was standing steadily on the ground. He kissed her like he was a drowning man, and he could swear that he was, and the dull ache in his chest seemed to evaporate as Natasha's familiar fingers dragged through his hair.

When they broke apart to breathe, Natasha's hands clung to his biceps and he hadn't let her hips slip, holding them snugly together at the hips.

"You don't mind me, then?" Clint joked, and she smiled, a beautiful smile that made his insides flutter.

"I don't mind you one bit."

"You're just not cool with marriage?"

"No. I can't have children, I don't want to settle down, and your apartment is smaller than mine."

"And yet we stay here the most?"

"Because I like Lucky but I don't like dog hair all over my furniture."

"Right," Clint grinned. "Well, I wasn't planning on settling down, having children seems like a rash desicion, and Shield would hate us being married."

"You want to marry me to spite Shield?"

"No, no, I want to marry you because you're, well,  _you_." _  
_

"Plenty of people get divorced."

"I know. We should probably work a little more on the fear of commitment we've got going here before we get married," Clint reasoned. Natasha leaned her head to his chest, smiling despite herself. 

"So no marrying?" she clarified, looking up again to peck his lips, because they spent  _two and a half months_ apart, which wasn't too long in mission standards really, but then again. This hadn't been a mission. It had felt almost worse.

"I'll woo you into marriage one day," he said teasingly, and Natasha smiled. She'd really, truly missed him.

"Sure, Hawkguy."

"Oh, you think you're hilarious, don't you?" he laughed, his hands going down to her thighs as she hauled herself up into his arms.

"I am. Don't deny it, Barton," she said, kissing him deeply as she wrapped her legs around his waist, recommitting the feel of his tongue on hers to memory.

On the fire escape on the building across from Clint's, sat Kate and Bucky with their binoculars pointed on Clint's kitchen window.

"Up top, Winter." Kate got her high five, and Bucky smirked.

"We did good, Bishop."

\---


End file.
